ࡱ> 7967 *bjbjUU :7|7|&l4444444H     $H D D D D D D D D T V V V V V V $  z 4D D D D D z 44D D  D 4D 4D T D T | @ 44@ D 8 `S٢H N v@ @  0 @  @ HH4444A GIFT FROM... Occasionally, the headaches would return to haunt him. It was a fact of life as far as he was concerned. Post traumatic stress disorder they called it. There wasn't much they could do for him. They were sorry. But it wouldn't last forever. One day he would forget. That's what they said. But on a day like this, what they said wasn't much help. Intense pain filled his mind. The half-remembered images of torture swamped his senses as waves of agony brushed back and forth inside his tender skull. It had been like this for over a week now. The horrific nightmares came during the nights and cranial pain filled the days. There was no escape from the ordeal. He could hardly concentrate on his work. The one thing that kept him going was the thought that, however bad these after-effects were, at least he wasn't still suffering for real. At least this pain was just in his mind. That much he could just about cope with. If he had still been in the clutches of....of them, he would have surely killed himself by now. At least he was free. He staggered into his bedroom, half-dizzy from the affliction, groping his way blindly through the forest of furniture. He dimmed the lights and found the hypo' spray. He gave himself a double dose. It wouldn't diminish the pain completely, nothing ever did that, but at least he would be able to just about get to sleep. As he headed for where he knew the bed to be, the remembrances of deep scars all over his lithe body called out to him in torment. He was not allowed to forget them either. He sank slowly onto his bed with a tired sigh as the drugs took effect. He lay his still throbbing head onto the soft white pillow and pulled the sheets over his aching form, curling his legs up protectively. He shivered, although the air was not at all cold, and gradually fell into a deep, dark painful rest... * * * "A historical tour through the galaxy!! Visit some of the most extraordinarily fascinating places the universe has to offer!!" The brochure had been glossy. Perhaps overly so, for the tour had not turned out to be even half as interesting as the advertising that had accompanied it. For most of the passengers, except the small party of historians genuinely interested in the "wonders" served up to them, the excitement of the ship-board amusements had paled after the first few days and the planets the ship called in at were all as dull as each other. After only a fortnight, a group of holidaymakers had jumped ship at Calubras Minor to "escape" on another craft that was to take them directly back to Earth. The threat of law-suits filled the air after this incident, and the crew made a distinct effort to appear more exciting to the poor saps who were left, those for whom taking passage on another vessel was out of the question since this cruise alone had cost them nearly half a year's wages. To counter the decision apparently made by the cruise operators that the vessel would visit some of the most boring places in the galaxy, the remainder of the passengers (except the historians) held a competition of their own. They would scour the surfaces of their planetary tour destinations in an attempt to discover the worst item of tack masquerading as a souvenir that they could, and compare notes on the long slogs between space-ports and docking stations as the ship warped its way through space. * * * He browsed through the shelves, skimming past the historical texts and transcribes as the tall, blond-haired man stared at him accusingly from the other end of the shop. The assistant didn't seem too impressed that his one and only customer seemed to be deliberately avoiding all the "important" things about the planet he was on, in search of the more eye-catching items that the souvenir shop had to offer. Didn't he know what had happened here? Didn't he know that this was one of the most important planets in the universe from an historical point of view? Apparently not. His customer neither knew nor cared. Although, the customer actually found it more than mildly amusing that such a once-proud race, should be forced to abandon their crusade, their cause, and become reduced to this, a race of souvenir shop managers and tourist guides, desperately trying to promote their dead planet in an attempt to get Galactic Federation aid and recognition for their struggle. Pathetic. With a start, he pulled away a rolled-up map of the planet on one shelf and saw it. His intended purchase. He had found that which he sought. The tackiest piece of junk that ever passed as a souvenir on any world.... ever. This one, would most definitely win him the prize back on the ship... * * * On the third day of their visit to this barren, sterile world, it had happened. The tour operators and their native representatives on the planet had assured them that the danger was well past. Apart from a few thousand harmless occupants, the world was dead. No one could possibly be interested in what lay beneath the ruins of the great city, even if the rumours of what was buried there were true. But the experts were completely wrong in their assessment of the situation. On this occasion, the alien danger, though distant, had a long arm. The enormous armoured Battlecruiser had appeared in a flash from Hyperspace and within seconds the huge orbiting space station and the cruise-liner docked alongside had been totally destroyed before the alarm could be raised. The small settlements on the planet's surface by the ruins of the ancient great city were blasted with impunity from orbit. The pitifully few and ill-equipped defensive fighters that rose from the planets surface to meet the behemoth from deep space were swatted like flies even before their anti-ship missiles achieved target lock. The under-powered defensive ground batteries caused no damage at all to the monster spaceship that used its advanced sensors to quickly identify the small military installations that dared to pose the challenge - and removed them with surgical precision using energy weapons that had a range far beyond the range of those on the planet. Within minutes, the shock troops had been landed on the surface in small scout-craft to mop up any resistance. The Battlecruiser had then left to rejoin its fleet, but the planet had been swiftly occupied and left with a potent force for death. And then - the labour gangs had been formed. And the work had begun. Seemingly endless work, full of pain and torment. All resistance was quashed ruthlessly. After the interrogations and the torture, the creed was: "Work or die". And that was exactly what the prisoners did. Scrabbling through the rocks with their bare, red-raw hands. Those holidaymakers unlucky enough to have survived the swift attack on the planet were plunged into a living hell. * * * He awoke with a start as the dream faded quickly from his mind. He threw the covers from the bed and sat up, swinging his legs over the side, knocking over the glass of water that sat on the floor. With a resigned groan, he dropped his pounding head into the palms of his sweaty hands, gently rubbing his eyes with his thumbs as stars flashed before them in a tired daze. He slowly looked up and then stood, feeling the bones crack, sensing the scars on his back stretch with the effort. The same dream. Always the same dream. Then he saw it. There on the shelf. And the ordeal came flooding back to him again. Like the dream, but this time worse, without the unconscious sanitation of the ordeal imposed by the mental images of sleep. In rest, his brain watered the experience down. Awake, he had no such automatic control. The daydreams told it like it was. The object on the shelf came from his dream. It came from the planet. It was supposed to have won him the competition. Instead it became another symbol of his torture. A souvenir of pain. He shakily reached out with his long fingers to pick up the artefact. It was roughly rectangular in shape, about six inches by three and one inch thick on the edges. The four sides were ragged and the underneath was roughly convex, curving outwards, contrasting with the smooth, slightly pitted surface of the face. A thin bar of metal wire was stuck inside the greyness of the shape, poking out at the top and bottom with sharp broken-off spikes. It was a lump of metal cage reinforced concrete. He weighed the item in his right hand. It was heavier than it should have been. The authentication/information label that was stuck on one side postulated that it had been chemically enhanced somehow to make it stronger. Part of an underground structure in which it was rumoured lay the remains of.... something terrible. He laughed to himself at this. The "something terrible" wasn't there any more. As his fingers scoured over the familiar shape, minute pieces of dust fell onto the floor in an invisible swirling cloud. An insane cross of shiny blue ribbon crossed over the flat top of the souvenir's surface. A gaudy bow was its crowning glory. He shivered in fear as he read the shiny reflective label that was stuck crudely on the side of the bow. Savagely, he threw the lump of man-made rock into the bin. He had enough memories remaining on his torso of his ordeal at the hands of those monsters. He didn't need another physical reminder when his mind would never let him forget. He didn't need such a souvenir. Not when he had all the others. The lump of concrete settled amongst the empty food packaging and pieces of screwed up paper in the bin. The label was creased, but the four happy words still shone out. A Gift From Skaro. 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